“Have this,” Callie said. “Take it.” She was holding it out to Jacqueline as if she intended to feed it to her.
Jacqueline took the chocolate between two fingers.
“Merci,” she whispered automatically and ate.
Merci, her mother mimicked, shaking her head in disgust.
That seat was the first blow, the chocolate the second. She was powerless. She ate and ate. There were nuts in it. There were raisins. She ate and then after some time passed she could breathe, she could see.
“Better?” Callie asked, smiling.
“Yes, thank you,” Jacqueline said, and rested the side of her head against the glass. “You’re very nice. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m not used to this heat, or all the walking.” She turned her head and looked away onto the parking lot.
“Happens all the time,” Callie said, patting Jacqueline’s knee.
Jacqueline didn’t respond. Now that she’d recovered her mind, now that the shaking had let up, she was embarrassed and angry.
“Why do you think I keep this chocolate on the bus? People are always passing out on me.”
“Thank you. I really am sorry.”
“It’s nothing.” She handed Jacqueline a small bottle of water. “Here, drink this. I’m going to run up the hill and collect the group. Stay here and rest a while. I’ll be ten minutes. There’s a bathroom in the back if you need it.”
When the tour guide was gone, the driver hopped up and stood on the first step in the well. He lit a cigarette and, blowing the smoke outside, watched Jacqueline in a way that was familiar and that she did not like.
“Hi,” she said.
The man raised his chin, but said nothing in reply. He kept pulling on his cigarette and giving her cold, lingering looks.
She finished her bottle of water, stood up, hoisted her pack onto her shoulders, and prepared to leave, but was struck again by an intense feeling of nausea. The man flicked his cigarette out the door and set his gaze on her. She wanted off the bus, wanted to be free of it, to go vomit in the trees somewhere, in the wind, in peace, but it was rising in her and she could not imagine pushing past him. She could not touch him or breathe his acrid smell. So instead, she turned and walked to the back of the bus. Pushed herself into the toilet, pushed her pack onto the sink, and locked the door. Then she bent over and vomited chocolate and water and acid bile into the bowl.
You see, her mother said, pressing a damp cloth to Jacqueline’s forehead, you must not depend on anyone. You must not give anything of yourself to anyone until you are certain. Until you are sure that you are safe. Otherwise, for now, no one. Look at you. Weak. Imprisoned. Indebted. Just like your father, my heart. Just like your father.
She wiped her mouth with a square of toilet paper. Then Jacqueline raised up, closed her eyes, and turned to face the mirror. She took a long breath.
There she was—gaunt, cheeks hollow, eyes flat. It was a shock to see herself, not because she was thin and tired, but because it was strange to be reminded of her own face, strange to connect the person she’d been living with all this time to the face before her. The two seemed entirely separate.
There were four quiet knocks on the door. “Are you in there, Jackie. Jacqueline? Are you okay?”
“Be out in just a second.”
“Sure, take your time. But we’re going to get going, okay? Have to get these people home.”
It seemed inconceivable to her that the bus was now full, all of those people waiting for her. It felt a disaster. She would open that door and be the absolute focus of every one of them.
“No,” Jacqueline said. “Just need a minute and I’m off.”
“We’ll give you a ride down. It’s fine. We’re stopping in Fira and then Imerovigli and then Oìa. We can take you all the way back to your apartment. Take your time.”
Jacqueline was silent. She felt the jolt of the bus slipping into gear. She was already being taken away.
“Okay,” she said, pushing her head against the mirror. “I have to meet my husband in Fira anyway,” she whispered, but there was no answer.
She washed her face in the sink and did what she could to make herself appear clean. She straightened her back.
“Really?” she whispered. “That’s wonderful.”
She practiced surprise. She practiced interest. She adjusted her tank top. She smiled at herself. She tried a silent laugh. She looked into her eyes. And then, with what felt like a final breath before plunging deep into water, she unlocked the door. She stepped out into the aisle. She saw the driver’s black eyes in the wide rearview mirror.
The hum of conversation vanished as she made her way, row by row, toward the front of the bus.
The tour guide, who had been leaning forward speaking in Greek to the driver, sat up and turned as if alerted by the lull in conversation. “Come sit here,” she said, raising her hand.
Jacqueline saw the woman’s smile and the driver’s eyes at once.
You must speak. You must fight. You must be resilient and charming.
“Sorry, everyone,” Jacqueline said. “Have to learn to eat breakfast.”
A heavy woman with a terribly sunburned face turned and gave Jacqueline a friendly look.
Jacqueline rolled her eyes and shook her head to say, Idiot me, silly woman, what can you do? It was her mother’s trick, her mother’s lie.
Callie moved over to the window and Jacqueline took her place.
“Are you feeling better, mana mou?”
“What’s that you’re saying?”
“Oh, it’s like sweetheart, I guess.”
“Mana mou,” Jacqueline repeated.
The road wound down in long snaking turns. The bus groaned in the downshift. She watched the landscape pass and then as the road straightened she could see high above her, the mountaintop and for a flashing moment what she thought were her cypresses. Already she was so far from that bed, that view, that brief home. Again, she was leaving. Again, she was abandoning a place, relinquishing a safe present, for some unsure future.
She strained to see the trees, those familiar rocks, remnants of a garrison, peaceful amphitheater, but the bus had taken a turn. The mountain was behind them and all she could see now were green vineyards descending to the western coast, the sea, and thin dark silhouettes of islands in the far distance. Again, she was tumbling away. Blind and without control.
Forward, her mother said. Forward.
Jacqueline nodded and, for the first time in hours, was capable of taking a full breath.
THE BUS GLIDES along smooth asphalt roads. Telephone poles pop past. Cars whip by. The sky is cloudless. Rows and rows of vines. She’s on her bicycle, steering with one hand, running her fingers along a picket and wire fence. The bus turns gently away from the sea. Jacqueline is tired. She’s at peace. The soft seat beneath her. She closes her eyes. She takes another long breath. She crosses her arms tight around her pack. Saifa’s nails are still wet with red polish. There are cotton balls between her toes. There is a storm building over the ocean. The polish is called Pure Passion. The clouds are so dark. They gather and gather and gather. Rain is already battering the ocean. The two of them are side by side. Four legs, four feet, twenty toes and, beyond, the rain coming. The thunder only a quiet rumbling. They hold hands and prepare to run. Saifa will jump up and move on her heels. They will both laugh when Jacqueline trips over the end of her chair and from behind the screen they’ll watch as the lightning cuts and cuts and cuts.
YOU MAY NOT RELAX, her mother said as if she regretted it. You may not sleep here, my heart. You must wake up, you must wake up.
The bus was stopped and idling in front of a small hotel. The doors were open and there were people passing by her seat. Out the window she could see Callie talking to the sunburned woman.
You will need to decide what is next. You must not wait.
She could smell cigarette smoke and was grateful not to find the driver’s eyes in the mirror. None
of the tourists left on the bus seemed to notice her. She should stand and walk off the bus here, but she could not get herself to stand. The prospect of going out into the heat—no, not the heat, the heat wasn’t what kept her there. It was the prospect of noise that was most daunting. The rush of cars and wind and voices. She was so grateful for the shelter of that bus. Its insulation and quiet.
You must make a decision. She’ll try to take you to Oìa. You should get off here. And if not, if you’re too weak for that, then in Fira, but you’ve already run from Fira. Fira is full of police.
Yes, Jacqueline thought. But she made no move. And there was the driver, who looked at her again dead on, and although she should have turned her eyes away, provided no challenge, she held his gaze with a fierceness that broke him. He turned and took his place behind the wheel and with two hands put on his sunglasses.
If he was watching her in the mirror, he was doing so like a coward.
I’ll get off in Fira, she said to her mother, who nodded and rolled a lime back and forth over the countertop.
“I’ll get off in Fira,” she said to the tour guide when she took her seat. “I have to meet my husband there anyway.”
“Sure,” the woman said.
The bus stopped in a lot just off of the main square. Jacqueline had not constructed a plan. The doors were open, people were up and filing out, but she stayed still and kept her face turned to the window. She was not ready with a story. She was too tired to move. There were taxis out there. She watched a group of kids all dressed in matching yellow T-shirts. There were signs for Internet cafés and beyond them, in the distance, was the road out of town bordered on both sides by tall eucalyptus trees. There was a pair of policemen smoking in front of a news kiosk.
“We’re here,” the tour guide said.
Jacqueline didn’t respond. She kept her face to the window and closed her eyes.
“Mana mou,” the tour guide whispered, and then Jacqueline felt the woman’s soft fingers on the back of her neck. She shivered and turned.
“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry. I was somewhere else.”
“You’ve had a rough day. You sure you don’t want us to take you on to Oìa? We’re headed there anyway.”
“No, thank you. I have to meet my husband.”
“Sure,” the woman said.
The lie was as obvious as anything.
The two women descended the bus and stood together in the heat.
“Well, thank you,” Jacqueline said. “Thank you, Callie.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Well.”
“Listen, if you ever need to find me. Here.” She held out a card. “In case you lost the first one.”
The driver was nowhere.
“Please thank the driver for me,” Jacqueline said, gauging the woman’s eyes, but they betrayed no plot, no collusion.
She took the card. “In case I do.” She reached out and touched the woman’s arm. “You’ve been very kind,” she said and walked away.
SHE WENT IN THE DIRECTION of the main square where she’d once been so hungry, where she’d sat on the pharmacy steps. How long ago had that been? Time ran out behind her like blood.
Time runs out before you, my heart. It extends and extends. Into the distance, into the future. You are young. You are a girl. You have lives and lives to live. What’s passed will fade.
Jacqueline knew her mother was lying. She crossed the square and stood in line at the gyro shop, where she spent seven euros on two—one lamb, one pork—and a can of Coke.
Reckless, irresponsible child.
She carried her lunch to a shaded bench facing the square and for those next minutes was aware of nothing but that food. And when she’d finished it all, and there was no nausea, when she didn’t feel like vomiting, she took a full breath.
Three policemen walked past. Jacqueline crossed one leg over the other and began folding the wax paper into quarters. They paid her no attention and now she thought she’d made the right decision to return here. Stronger now, there was something brave in that. A suggestion of something vital in her, something she’d forgotten. It was a brief rise of confidence, an irrational sense of something she couldn’t quite identify. Desire maybe. Aspiration.
Hope, her mother whispered and ran her nails against the back of Jacqueline’s neck. She did it like she was pulling her fingers from the keys of a piano, one after the other, pinky to pointer.
But it was not her mother who touched her neck that way. Those were Bernard’s fingers. That was his gesture. It had been misappropriated by time. Or because of it.
He was walking toward her in a loose white cotton shirt. He was looking at her, squinting in his way, an act of estimation, which was, in those late days, his version of a smile. Then she could smell him. Hotel soap and sweat and Speed Stick. She could feel his face rough against her breast, his soft hair beneath her hand, the sound of the air conditioner starting and stopping.
The memory of those late afternoons caused something to fall inside her, and whatever brightness had come from the food, from the rush of sugar and caffeine, was replaced by longing.
They were alone on some dirty Monrovia beach. He was talking and talking and she listened to him the way she always did—enthralled by the flow of words. He talked and talked and she watched the waves rising up out of the ocean and slamming onto the sand. The foam all white in the sun and the sky turning to storm. She loved to listen to him. Not the words themselves, just the sound rolling out and out. She was already convinced by then—about Ghankay, about the absurdity of her job, about all of it. Even about her father, though Bernard never said it exactly. He talked and talked. He was so full of reason and disgust. So full of facts. The truth, he said to her. The truth is, he said. Open your eyes. Look, Jacqueline, look around.
He was twenty-seven when they met. She was eighteen and he’d laughed at her. As if she were a child. I’ve seen the beaches, yes. Shaking his head. Superior. Yes, I’ve seen your beautiful beaches. Flirting. And already admonishing her.
He came and went. Filing stories from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire. Gone for months. Once nearly an entire year. But he always came back and always with his disgust, his contempt. So full of things to say. Nearly six years of Bernard coming and going, coming and going. Six years of his talking.
Of his rage. Of his tenderness. Of his promises. Of those dark eyes suddenly before her, suddenly gone.
She’d mistaken his contempt for conviction.
What kind of a man, her mother began.
But Jacqueline stood up. She carried her trash to a can, dropped it, and kept walking. She made her way off the open plaza and into the narrow streets. She climbed upward, not seeing anything. She did not maintain the right expression, she did not walk in the lazy, easy style of the people she passed. She was not demure. She was a central point of energy on every street. Her face was hard, she walked with power and direction and everyone who saw her coming kept their distance.
Be careful, my love. This is how you end up in jail.
But Jacqueline sucked her teeth and dismissed her mother with a furious shake of her head. And soon she arrived at the top of the town. Anyone in her way, she would have knocked over. She dared people to hold her eyes, she dared them all to challenge her. She was ready to fight now. She would have fought anyone who came at her, but no one did.
She split the crowds. There were no police. No one stopped her.
She crossed a path cobbled with fragments of pale limestone and black lava rock. She entered a small green park, and from here, breathing hard, she saw the water far below lying still in the ruined bowl of the caldera like something that wasn’t quite water at all, a thing between liquid and solid and of a color unlike any she’d seen. She stood on that sharp edge of cliff, her forearms on a rock wall, and looked down on the small barren island in the middle, which was Nea Kameni. She watched the wind break the stillness and blow rough tracks across the surface of the water.
/> She was calm. Something pulled at her, it seemed. As if from within, drawing her downward, somewhere solid. So high above all that blue, that treeless island, perhaps it was vertigo. But she did not feel off balance or dizzied. Instead she felt powerful, she felt a moment’s peace, released from an otherwise constant rage and anxiety and terror.
And how do you explain that?
Need I?
Of course you do, her mother said. Of course you do. She wore a black A-line dress and was clipping her toenails into an empty bathtub.
Jacqueline watched a massive cruise ship enter the caldera. The water looked so unlike water that Jacqueline imagined the ship to be moving on invisible rails.
Now she was here. All that motion and disaster and chaos. And then: here. Here with her pack at her feet and her stomach full of food and twenty euros in her pocket and a foolish sense of calm.
That is God, my heart.
Twice, her mother said. Don’t shake your head. Twice, you’ve felt it. That weight. That power. That calm. And how many times have you seen it? The good that’s come to you. The safety you’ve enjoyed. You came with nothing, my little girl. Nothing. And now here you are.
I have what I came here with. Plus an idiotic visor, someone’s old ChapStick, some money. Sand in a plastic bag.
Her mother smiled at this.
Jacqueline smiled as well—brief and faint.
And life, love. Life.
I came here with life.
Her mother didn’t respond.
Now she was here. Once again perched somewhere looking down onto a world below, faced with the same question. Always the same question.
Your life is what is made by the answers to those questions. To all the thousands and thousands of answers to those questions.
Is that true?
Of course, it’s true.
Jacqueline wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure she understood what her mother meant.
What are your choices now?
Jacqueline didn’t respond.
Jacqueline, her mother said. What are your choices now?
A Marker to Measure Drift Page 9